The disgraceful, national disrespect for Law Enforcement reach a new high (or low) point this week with the tragic death of 5 police officers in Dallas. Unfortunately, this tragedy was just a symptom of a much larger disease.  That disease is our mistrust and hatred of those who are not like us.

Our law enforcement agencies are made up of millions of honest, hard-working people who put their lives on the line every day in order to protect us.  They do this for very little pay and even less gratitude. This has to change. We must treat our law enforcement agencies with the respect that they deserve. For too long now, every time some part of our justice system acts in a way that we do not agree with, our first response is outrage, disrespect, and accusations of corruption.

Case in point:   Last week, Republicans attacked the FBI, which is the most respected law enforcement organization in the world, simply because they did not like the outcome of an FBI investigation. Regardless of the thousands of hours of painstaking work done by the top detectives in the country, they were immediately labeled as corrupt and rigged.  The Republicans’ blind hatred of Hillary has clouded their minds so that reason and rationality have been thrown out the window.

If we want respect for law enforcement, it has to start at the top. We ALL have to respect law enforcement if we expect anybody to respect them.

Holding a Congressional hearing and questioning Comey about the investigation was not out of line.  It alone would have been a proper response. What was disgraceful was the immediate outrage expressed by lawmakers and other political leaders, who had NOT seen all of the evidence, calling the result corrupt and the end of the “Rule of Law”.

Let’s look at this from another angle: The Email Controversy has not directly affected any of us. No one has died as a result. (That we know of). But look at the outrage and mistrust of the FBI the result of this single investigation has generated. Republications’ hatred of Hillary is so intense that they cannot even entertain the possibility that she is not guilty of a crime.

Now, put yourself into the position of a Black person, who sees real people die at the hands of police again and again. For many blacks, their entire life experience has been shaped around a mistrust of police.  If you, as a Republican, refuse to trust and respect the FBI over a single issue, how can you expect black people to trust and respect the law enforcement on levels that they interact with on a daily basis?

If we are to bring this country together, we must stop hating.  And we must start at the top.

ALL OF US:  We must let law enforcement do its job. Accountability must be maintained, of course. But any oversight should be formalized and conducted with respect and impartiality, and never look like a witch hunt.  Whenever an unfortunate event happens, we need to stop rushing to judgement based on short, out-of-context clips of videos. Let’s wait for the results of the ensuring investigation and see what light is shed by the totality of the circumstances. If the officers in question violated the law, then (and only then) they should be prosecuted.

MEDIA:  Stop worrying about ratings and put some journalistic integrity back into the system.  If you are going to report a story as “news”, report it fairly and completely, without bias.  If you have an opinion, label the article as an “editorial”.   Ask yourself, “What would Edward R. Murrow do?”

POLITICIANS:  This is a political election year, and we have two strong candidates running, each of them hated by the other party, and even hated by members of their own party.

If you are a candidate running for office, focus your campaign ads on what YOU can do to fix the problems we face. Tell us how YOU are going to make our lives better. We do NOT need you to tell us what our problems are. And we really don’t need you telling us who to blame. Just tell us how you can help make it better. Don’t run attack ads labeling the other candidate as corrupt and unfit for office.   When you make speeches, stop telling us how bad your opponent is.  When you do, you are just pandering to your own audience.  Instead, make your speeches about how you can make our lives better.  Tell us how you will bring us back together as a nation.

Regardless of how you personally feel about the other candidate, roughly half this country supports and believes in that person. If you want to convince people to vote for you, attacking the person they trust and believe in is NOT the way to do it.   Attack ads just further divide us.  Let’s focus on the positive, and we all will be better in the long run.

Just as distrust breeds distrust, honesty and fair-dealing will trickle down as well, and that is what it will take to heal our country. We are the greatest country in the world because we are UNITED.   It is the unity of our diverse population that gives us our strength.  The only thing that will ever defeat us is when that unity is destroyed.   Remember the adage:  United we Stand, Divided we fall.   It’s more than just words.

Transgender, Bathrooms, and the Feds (Part II)

I always try to look at both sides of an issue before I take a stand.  I try not to let my emotions overwhelm my senses of logic and right and wrong.  Finally, I try to make sure that any stand that I do take supports the core principles our country was founded on:  Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

I wrote about the transgender bathroom issue last week.  Apparently, my blog did not solve the issue!  It has grown even bigger this week.  So here is my take, Part Two:

Conservatives have argued that allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice puts our children in danger.   I reject that argument.  Both statistics and common sense demonstrate the flaws of that argument.  Over the past 15 years, at least a dozen states have passed laws specifically allowing transgender persons to use the bathroom of their choice.  During that entire time, there have been no reported incidents of transgender people, or people pretending to be transgender, assaulting other people in restrooms.  It simply has not happened.   And common sense explains why:  If a man is planning to assault someone in a restroom, the last thing he wants is to draw attention to himself.  And whether it is legal or not, any man entering a women’s restroom WILL draw attention to himself.   If the man disguises himself as a woman to get in, it does not matter whether there is a transgender law or not, because we won’t know he is not a woman unless we start looking down the pants of everyone using a restroom.  We won’t find out until he actually starts to attack someone.  At that time, he has broken a much bigger law than any transgender law.

Liberals have taken the stand that they have a right to use the bathroom of their choice.  I also reject that argument.  Unlike the issue over gay marriage, where couples were denied basic spousal protections, tax benefits, inheritance, and other legal rights just because their spouse did not have the proper genitals, no one is denying a transgender person the right to relieve themselves in a rest room.  I do not deny that transgender people may feel uncomfortable using the restroom that matches their anatomy.   But we cannot also deny that allowing them to use the other restroom will result in other people being uncomfortable.  Either way, no matter what, someone is going to be uncomfortable.   Comfort-ability is a feeling based on emotion, and cannot be dictated to us by others.   This is way comfort is NOT a right we are granted under the Constitution, nor should it ever be.  When we start to pass laws just to protect people’s feelings, we are starting down a slippery slope that can only end in disaster.

My position is that the Federal Government needs to stay out of this issue entirely.  That means you, Mr. President.  If State and local authorities want to set a policy on what restrooms people can use in government-owned building, let them.  State and local authorities are locally elected and can be defeated if they don’t follow the standards community requires.   But private citizens and businesses should be left alone to decide for themselves how their restrooms may be used.  I applaud Target for taking a stand, and I will continue to shop there.  And if I need to use the restroom there, I am comforted to know I now have twice as many options to choose from.  If other stores want to say that restroom usage must match anatomy, that is their right as well, and I will also continue to frequent those stores.  For we, as consumers, have the right to patronage or not to patronage any particular business.

Bottom Line:  Except for setting policies on buildings it directly owns, neither the Federal Government nor local authorities should be passing any laws or ordinances on this issue at all. 

Let all remember that every time that the government passes a law or regulation telling us something that we must or must not do, we give up a little bit of that liberty that our country was founded on, and that our forefathers fought and died to give to us. Any use of governmental power to restrict our freedoms should be a last resort, and used only when absolutely necessary.

Personally, it does not matter to me in the least what bathroom a transgender person uses.  I use the restroom solely to take care of my personal business.  Besides, except for urinals (which only men can physically use), the only time anybody is disrobed in the slightest is when they are in a stall with the door shut.  If someone peeks over or under the door while you are in there, they are already breaking the law anyway.

Another related issue was brought up this week as well.  What about locker rooms and showers?  Unlike bathrooms, where the important activities are still private and no one is really exposed to any other person’s private parts, locker rooms and showers leave nothing unexposed.  In this instance, I must take a harsher stand, and side with those that would restrict locker room and showers to those who biologically match genders, especially where children are concerned.

At this point in my life, as an adult, if I personally had to choose between walking around in a locker room with a bunch of naked men or naked women, I would choose the women.  Sadly, I seriously doubt they would feel the same about me.  

But as a child, it would have been a different story.  In our society, parents are free to raise their kids as they feel is right.  And that includes teaching of sex when age and individual maturities warrant.  Any child who has ever seen a mirror knows what their gender looks like.  But exposing a young child to a naked member of the opposite sex before they are old enough to understand why we are different could cause anxiety and interfere with their parents’ desires on how to educate them on these topics.

I can understand the desires of a transgender person to use the restroom whose gender their identity with.  Most likely, they are already dressing and behaving like the gender they identify with, and will blend in using that restroom.  Forcing them to use the restroom that matches their biological gender would just make them stand out and be even more uncomfortable.  But the opposite is true for locker rooms and showers.  No matter what gender you identify with, when you are naked, your either have a penis or you do not.